#consider this an OMGTWP appreciation post

[zhaozaipalooza]

A Not-So-Weekly Insight

Hi all, crooked here. Just going to take a moment in between posts about our villains / their love interests / the cultural influences that we can view them through, and talk a bit about the other side of things. The side that all of us occupy, on the back-end of the screen.

Having a thing for the bad guys -- whether simply wanting to know their backstory or secretly wishing it was you (and not the hero) who gets kidnapped and tied up -- is an experience as old as fandom itself. It’s not universal, as we all know, but someone somewhere is always more interested in the antagonist than they are the character(s) they’re actually supposed to root for. And when you find someone who shares those feelings, who is just as enthusiastic about asking why a villain turned out the way they did, who writes or reads the same kind of fics you do... just, wow. What a wonderful feeling that is. 

When it comes to rarepairs, especially ones involving lesser-loved characters within the fandom, sometimes you really need that sense of community and support, because there are always going to be folks who take their disagreement or disapproval further than necessary. 

When fellow mod and literal ray of sunshine @ohmygodtheywereparabatai pitched the concept of mini-themed weeks leading up to the event, I was thrilled by the notion and also filled with dread at the fact that Zhayu had been included. Oh, I thought, we better not. We’ll turn off a lot of participants, and I don’t want that. People might think it’s me abusing my position of mod for the purpose of self-promotion. Worst of all, though, I didn’t want an increase in exposure to lead to another wave of anonymous hate for the chief producers of this content, given that they’d be so prominently featured.  

Ray assuaged my fears when I expressed them, and so here we are, with Zhayu week coming to a close and no apparent calamity as a result. Maybe some of you are intrigued by the ship, maybe some of you are just counting down the days until we move on, but for me, this week has been a reminder not only of my love for this ship and its various possibilities, but for the incredible support that can be found within fandom communities. Ray has championed what I would otherwise have been too cowardly to, and the experience of that -- of the enthusiasm, the passionate bolstering, the  eager camaraderie -- is something I hope you all get to feel at some point, ideally as part of this event. 

There’s irony of course, that a pair of the most divisive and contentious characters in a fandom might bring folks together, but that’s part of what makes Zhaozai great. 

#zhaozai palooza 2021 #i have been in one of two states this entire week #unbridled joy at getting to revisit my favourite ship #and the horror of being perceived #ray i will never deserve you and all the work that you do for this event #you are the patron saint of rarepairs #if everyone had even just one person like you in their lives i think the world would be a better place #consider this an OMGTWP appreciation post #rarepairs